Feryal Daloul: ِThe first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Judicial Council

Feryal Daloul became the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Judicial Council. In 2006, then-Prime Minister Fouad Siniora approved the appointment of five new judges; Daloul was among them, and was also the youngest. Her appointment had significant implications for the increasing participation of women in the judiciary in Lebanon at the time, with 141 women judges being appointed out of a total of 452 judges. Today, the total number of judges amounts to 543 ¹, 48% ² of whom are women. To ensure the protraction of this balanced representation, a quota system has been applied to the judiciary. Though this percentage reflects women’s remarkable presence in the judicial body in Lebanon, some regional as well as professional disparities continue to exist. The former is palpable upon the examination of the representation of women as judges. In 2010, for example, 48% of judges in Beirut, Ba’abda, and Jdeideh were women, whereas women made up a mere 25% and 21% of the judges, respectively, in the Beqaa (in the North) and Nabatiye (in the South). The latter disparity is witnessed in how women judges tend to handle cases that are more “suitable for women,” such as custody related matters.